


Colors appear (and bleed into one)

by distinctive_pineapples



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, F/M, First three chapters tie into each other, Fluff, Friendship, New Parents, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Secret Relationship, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:48:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23984833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distinctive_pineapples/pseuds/distinctive_pineapples
Summary: A collection of Flommy ficlets--some connected, others standalone, all with a nice dose of fluffiness.Recent installments:7) Felicity has a (maybe not so) terrible idea for salvaging a mission.8) Tommy. Felicity. Two constants in the unfamiliar.9) Tommy loves Felicity's laugh.10) Some fluffy "accidental" kisses between the pair.11)LaughterTommy Merlyn is the best medicine.
Relationships: Tommy Merlyn & Felicity Smoak, Tommy Merlyn/Felicity Smoak
Comments: 54
Kudos: 45





	1. Casting On

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, first time putting up a non-crossover Arrow fic! Admittedly not something I expected to be doing, given that I dropped off around season 3 and, at this point, am solely attached to these two particular characters, but quarantine has had me moving on fic more than usual and this is something I've always wanted to try.
> 
> Flommy has long been one of my true OTPs, yet I'd never managed to get myself to actually write for them, much as I wanted to. Reblogging a few prompt lists on Tumblr has given me the chance to change that, so now that I have a few fills built up, I figured I'd port them over here too!
> 
> The first three ficlets are part of the same series--what I like to call "the Blanket 'verse"--but the fourth and any others to come will likely be standalone, unless noted otherwise.
> 
> Pretty straightforward, so enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first installment in the Blanket 'verse, spurred from a one-word prompt from Abbie (and a multi-day train journey): Secret

“So that’s your secret, huh?”

“Don’t judge,” Tommy says, but there’s no force or humiliation behind the request. He doesn’t look up from the clacking needles and colorful array of yarn even as Felicity gently sinks onto the couch cushion next to him.

“Of course not,” she assures him, leaning in just enough to give him a peck on the cheek (and accept the returning one on her nose). “If anything, I’m a little miffed that I’m only just now learning that you can knit. And seeing as _both_ of us have filter problems, that’s a pretty big deal.”

“Touché.” Tommy makes one final stitch to complete the row, and sets both needles down for a moment. “To be fair, it’s not a frequent hobby, and I don’t think even Oliver remembers that I do. One of our grade school teachers offered to teach anyone interested in learning, and since this was when my dad was still gone, I… I needed the distraction.”

“But it’s more than that,” Felicity notes, reaching down to run her fingers over the already numerous rows of stitches. “You’re _creating_ something. Don’t brush it off so easily.”

Tommy regards his handiwork thus far. “Ah, yes, scarf number 36.” He glances over, a little sheepish. “I should probably note that I never learned how to knit anything else, in the many years since.”

“A blanket probably isn’t much different.” Felicity takes both index fingers and spreads them out from her right side and across to Tommy’s left. “Just a bit wider and longer.”

Tommy takes a look at the approximate measurements, contemplating. “Maybe,” he murmurs, “but that’s a pretty big leap.”

“A smaller one, then?” This time, Felicity draws both fingers in, strategically placing them on either side of her stomach.

It takes biting the inside of her cheek to keep herself from giggling when Tommy follows the movement in careful consideration, and then almost gives himself whiplash from the double-take of processing the positioning of her hands.

“You have plenty of time to figure it out,” Felicity tells him, finally laughing along at Tommy’s celebratory whoop and the lift off the couch into a twirl. “This is one secret we can wait a little longer to share.”


	2. Cute and Cuddly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An installment in the Blanket 'verse, based on a one-word prompt from Anonymous: Nightmare

“Please tell me this is a nightmare from which I will be waking momentarily, wrapped in the freakishly toned arms of my dear husband.”

“I can at least help on that last part,” Tommy says, resting his chin on Felicity’s shoulder as his arms slip around her back to rest gently above her slightly swelled stomach. “Although, I feel as if I should take offense to the descriptive choice there. Knitting rows upon rows of stitches works wonders on musculature, I’ll have you know.”

“Oh, no question there,” Felicity agrees, turning her head just a touch to bump her cheek against Tommy’s. But all too soon, the peace is broken, and her horrified gaze is drawn back to the crisis before them. “So if we’ve established that I _am_ , unfortunately, wide awake, I need to know why it looks like we’re starting a zoo. But one whose residents are all stuffed. And not in a taxidermic way, because that would be gross.”

“Well,” Tommy starts, letting out a nervous chuckle, “I can safely say that I’m only responsible for about half of this.”

Felicity narrows her eyes, taking a quick glance down. “Fitting how that applies in more than one context here.”

She hears the slight pop of Tommy’s mouth as it readies for a surely witty comeback. He seems to think better of it, though, and murmurs, “Well, I guess if you tell enough people, and they gift you practical items but _also_ want to toss in a toy or two…”

Felicity sighs. “ _That_ part I can understand. But then _you_ went out and got _more_ stuffed animals?”

“In my defense, all of this was a gradual process,” Tommy points out, slipping out from behind Felicity and strolling over to the pile on the rug. “I find a couple cute little guys while out shopping, there’s a delivery at the door when I get back. Lather, rinse, repeat. And I’d try to stop, but…” he trails off, plucking up one particularly fluffy, overstuffed bear and lifting its arms as if in surrender. “I mean, how can you say no to that face?”

“Okay,” Felicity breathes, pinching the bridge of her nose just beneath her glasses. “I get it. I do. You know how much of a sucker I am for adorable. But we can’t let this get out of hand.” She drops her hand from her face and motions to the bear, accepting it with both hands once Tommy passes it over. “You and I, we’re both cut off moving forward. We should also assess everything we have now for ways to thin the crowd, finding anyone we could rehome and donate.”

Tommy casts an almost wistful look at the collection at his feet, but nods in agreement. “What can I say, I guess I’ve always had a weakness for cute and cuddly,” he admits, leaning in to give Felicity a peck on the forehead.

“Yes, well, mama bears have a fierce side, too,” she reminds him, bopping him on the nose with the bear’s head.

He grins, poking its fuzzy belly. “But I take it Lieutenant Puffy here has received the seal of approval?”

“He _does_ meet those cute and cuddly standards,” Felicity notes, hugging the stuffed animal to her chest. She freezes in doing so, though, as a particular detail sets in. “Wait, you already _named_ him?”

The (frustratingly adorable) guilty look that comes to Tommy’s face at that says all too much.

“Tommy. _How many_.”

His gaze slides nervously to the side. “Not… not _all_ of them?”

Felicity flops—or does the closest thing to it while lowering herself carefully down—to the floor next to the stuffed menagerie. “Well, baby, it looks like you’re going to be swimming in stuffed animals, because your dad assigned them all names before we even aligned on _yours_ ,” she sighs.

Tommy takes a seat next to her, eyes flitting between Felicity and the stuffed animals. “Did you want to review the rest?” he asks cautiously.

A moment’s pause, but finally Felicity leans into Tommy’s side, a light smile creeping up her face. “Could be fun.”


	3. Handle with Care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The (current) final installment in the Blanket 'verse, prompted by Abbie: "Holding hands has been perfected. Now to the next step."

“Okay,” Felicity starts, blowing out a breath that’s equal parts exhausted and amused. “Holding hands has been perfected. Now to the next step.”

“Mmm,” Tommy hums faintly, too preoccupied by the object of his gentle, almost dopey grin to look up. “I don’t disagree with that assessment. That’s a really strong grip from someone so tiny and cute.” His eyes finally flick up to catch Felicity’s with a glimmer of mirth. “Wonder who _else_ that sounds like.”

“Oh, I have a pretty good guess,” Felicity teases back, before giving him a hard stare. “Which means you have fair warning that I can strong-arm you if you keep hedging like this.”

Tommy’s head dips a bit lower at that, gaze turned back down to Felicity’s arms and bottom lip curling under in uncertainty. “Everything’s perfect as it is right now,” he says, gently rotating his left thumb. “I don’t want to disturb that.”

Felicity’s face goes soft at that. “You’re not going disturb anything—if she’s at all surprised by the change, she’ll settle back in before you know it.”

“Should we really be moving her around so much, though? I feel like she should be wearing a sticker that says _fra-gee-lay_ …”

“Tommy, you’re not going to break her,” Felicity finally sighs, the bundle in her arms sagging on the exhale. Her gaze catches on Tommy’s hand, and she raises her eyebrows. “If you keep letting her grab onto you like that, though, _she_ might break _you_. Or at least your thumb. So, in an effort to circumvent any injuries, you should really hold your daughter.”

She doesn’t miss the hitch of his breath on that last word, the wondrous disbelief of hearing it in relation to him—to _them_. It’s admittedly not something she’s gotten used to thinking either, though it’s sure to sink in soon enough.

Perhaps even as soon as her entire bone-tired body relaxes after transferring the seven-plus pounds of newborn out of her arms.

That realization must click for Tommy, as he quickly—but not jarringly so—slips his thumb free from the itty-bitty fist in which it was grasped and carefully readies his hands to accept the bundle.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve done this—not since Thea was born,” he admits as Felicity eases blanket and baby into his arms. “Still surprised that Moira even let me hold her, seeing as ten-year-olds aren’t the gentlest, and then, you know…” He trails off, shaking his head to swerve away from those thoughts and back into the here and now, to instead focus his energy on their little girl.

Sinking back against the pillows with a light smile, Felicity takes a moment to just watch father and daughter as Tommy gently sways on his feet, locked in a friendly wide-eyed staring contest with the precious cargo in his arms.

“Are you okay to reach behind you?” he asks after a moment, the question clearly directed at Felicity even though his eyes don’t leave their daughter. “There’s something tucked under the pillows, right side.”

Frowning slightly, Felicity complies, stretching a hand back and fumbling blindly over the hospital bed linens. Her fingers finally graze what feels like tissue paper, and latch onto something thick but soft folded within it.

Even wrapped, the gift is easily identified by the time she pulls it out from underneath the pillows and swings it around to set in her lap.

“You did it!” she laughs joyfully, turning to grin at Tommy and finding him reflecting one right back at her. “You didn’t tell me you finished.” She pauses, considering. “Actually, you never even showed me what it looked like after those few rows from when you first started. I wasn’t sure if you were still working on it, and didn’t want to ask in case you weren’t.”

Tommy’s shoulders hunch slightly at that, but not so much that the motion jostles the baby. “I didn’t know how it was going to turn out, so I didn’t want to get your hopes up. But then I really started getting down to it a month or so back, and by that point I felt like it’d work better as a surprise.” He leans his head in acknowledgement towards Felicity. “And yes, I know how you usually feel about surprises and mysteries…”

“I’ll give you a pass for this one,” she shoots back playfully, before sliding a finger under the tape and peeling the two ends of paper apart to unveil the contents underneath.

The last time Felicity had seen the blanket-to-be, it had consisted of a single knitted block of vibrant pink yarn. Unfolding the final product—the perfect size for tucking into a baby carrier—reveals that Tommy hadn’t limited himself to a monochromatic design.

Stripes run up and down the full length of the blanket, swapping colors a number of times throughout. There’s a familiar shade of green, as well as a deep crimson; canary yellow, and a few lines of bold black. Most of all, though are the paired patches of a lovely dark blue and the same pink Felicity had first seen.

The particular mixture of colors could very easily be garish under other circumstances, but stitched seamlessly together like this, it’s clear that they truly fit as parts of one whole—not too dissimilar from the people for whom they stand in.

“Think it’s too much?” Tommy asks, a hint of uncertainty in his tone. He steps closer to Felicity’s side, carefully lowering himself and their daughter (who now looks like she’s drifted off to sleep in his arms) onto the edge of the hospital bed. “I was going to go with pastels, but then I thought, ‘hey, let’s make it meaningful, put the rest of the family on there.’ Although, now I’m concerned that it’s a little _too_ meaningful, like I’m going to blow the team’s cover through baby blanket color choices.” He grimaces at the thought.

“We managed to get through Oliver’s greasepaint phase with minimal cover-blowing,” Felicity reminds him, reaching up to drape the blanket over his arms and the sleeping bundle of baby. “If no one picked up on something as un-subtle as that, I think we’ll be safe with this.”

Without shifting his grip too much, Tommy tugs the blanket to sit a little bit more comfortably, before turning back to Felicity with a grin. “True. And if anyone _does_ ask, we could probably throw them off the trail of color meanings by spinning a pretty good _yarn_.”

Tommy is incredibly lucky that Felicity is exhausted enough to only be able to groan at that comment.


	4. Shirt and Sweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from Abbie: "Is that my shirt?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's unrelated to (or at the very least takes place before) the Blanket 'verse, so it's largely a standalone. I had a bit of fun with this one.

“Is that my shirt?”

Tommy looks down, tugging at the black cotton fabric. “Hey, who’s to say I’m not a fan of…” He squints to read the stylized font upside-down, and one eyebrow arches once he makes sense of it. “Wait, _no way_ is that an actual band name.”

“Oh, no, Mattress on the Freeway was _legendary_ ,” Felicity contradicts, carefully controlling her voice so it comes out as a breathy, awed gasp, and any laughter is kept bottled up. “They sold out at major venues, everybody loved them. And this,” she taps a pink-painted nail over the well-worn white lines of a minivan carrying the namesake mattress that’s printed across the shirt’s chest, “ _this_ is a collector’s item.”

Almost unconsciously, Tommy’s hand drifts up to catch Felicity’s, entwining their fingers and pressing both to his heart. “They were that bad, huh?” he asks, fighting the grin twitching at the corners of his mouth.

“The _worst_ ,” Felicity laughs, tossing her head back as the façade melts away. “At least, terrible even by teenage garage band standards. Some guy in my high school English class, who wouldn’t have had anything to do with me otherwise because all of _this_ ,” she waves her free hand in a vague gesture to herself, “was tacked onto the awkwardness that comes preinstalled with being fifteen, asked for my help in building his band a webpage. Couldn’t pay me, but he also knew _just_ enough that he couldn’t ask it of me as a favor. So, in exchange for my services, I got a free first-edition t-shirt to mark their pre-successful days.”

Tommy frowns at that, casting his eyes up as he tries to break that all down. “Let me get this straight: some kid in a garage band expected you to pull together a website for free, yet he and his buddies had enough money to print off shirts that are decent-enough quality to still look this good after over a decade?” He glances back down at the graphic, and then at Felicity, perplexed. “If they had that sort of money on their hands, you’d think they’d have done a better job of budgeting.”

Felicity’s eyebrows skyrocket in amusement at that. “You’re seriously asking why a group of teenage wannabe rock stars didn’t have better financial planning beyond blowing all their money on making merchandise? _You_ ,” she pokes him playfully on the nose at that, “whose frivolous expenditures carried well into your twenties.”

“Hey, I never denied that I’m a hypocrite.” Tommy grins, slipping his free arm around Felicity’s lower back and gently sliding her in closer. “And it is a _very_ comfy shirt, I’ll give them that. Slightly snug fit, but I think that speaks to how perfectly chiseled I am.”

“So modest,” Felicity teases, before leaning in and placing her cheek to Tommy’s chest, right alongside their still-clasped hands. “They didn’t even ask me what size shirt I wanted, just gave me a quick ‘thank you’ and threw it at me. Lucky for me, it made for a perfect oversized sleep-shirt, which is how I’ve always used it.” She snuggles into the fabric with a happy sigh, the sound of Tommy’s heartbeat a comfort under her ear.

It’s a brief moment of bliss, before Felicity’s brain catches up and her eyes snap back open.

“Wait, how did you even _find_ this?” she asks, alarm slowly rising in her voice as she pulls back. “You weren’t wearing it all day, were you?”

Tommy frowns, dropping his hand from Felicity’s back to pull at the fabric again. “No, I swung by your place to get changed quickly before heading over here, and I knew I had a black t-shirt in the load of darks we washed a couple days ago. Thought I saw it on the drying rack, flipped it right side-out without looking at the front, and yanked it on as I was running out the door.”

“Okay, okay, so no one’s seen you in it yet,” Felicity says hurriedly, pinching the bridge of her nose and pushing her glasses up. “We can still fix this. You keep a spare change of clothes down here too, right?”

“Yeah, but…” Tommy starts, before it turns into a surprised yelp as he folds over and his head disappears under the shirt collar at which Felicity is now tugging.

“Great,” she replies, voice strained as she works to free the tight-fitting fabric. It gets a bit easier once Tommy—surely still a bit confused, but willing enough to go along with it—blindly latches on to the underarms and pulls, but it’s still going to take a bit more work. “Because this is a _sleep-shirt_ , and I’ve definitely worn it to girls’ night sleepovers with Sara and Laurel. And I can’t have you trying to tell Oliver that this is, like, some ironic thrift store find or whatever the first explanation that comes to your mind is, because that’ll just get him all Suspicious Glare-y and it’ll bounce from you to me and he’ll _figure it out_ , so…”

The shirt suddenly flies off, sending Felicity tottering back on her heels with a frightened squeak. Before she loses her balance altogether, though, Tommy’s hands snap up to grasp her wrists and gently pull her back upright.

“It’s okay,” he says calmly, hands shifting from Felicity’s wrists to instead rest on her shoulders. “Listen, I know it was initially my idea for us to keep things quiet as we start to get a feel for… well, _us_ , and you agreed. But I also don’t want it to feel like we actively need to keep things secret.” Tommy leans in, pressing their foreheads together in reassurance. “So if a t-shirt for a strangely-named band is how our relationship gets revealed to our friends, I can more than live with that.”

Felicity hesitates, wringing the shirt in her hands as she considers the situation. While Tommy had indeed been the one to suggest that they keep their budding relationship under wraps— _never_ , he made clear, because he was at all uncertain or embarrassed; he’d simply wanted them to just _be_ —Felicity had felt the same. It had been nice, sharing something just between the two of them, but keeping things so private was also so very limiting. No beyond-platonic affection exchanged while the team was around. Carefully-coordinated nights out that wouldn’t draw attention to them. Whatever evasive maneuvers they’d had to pull that one time Thea was angry with both Oliver _and_ Roy and came to her other brother for comfort, which had coincided with Felicity staying the night at Tommy’s.

Giving up their little bubble of secrecy would be tough, but it was a more than fair trade for what they’d earn with opening up.

“I’m still going to want this back,” Felicity warns, waving the shirt to punctuate before she tosses it onto Tommy’s left shoulder. “You’re borrowing it, that’s all.”

Tommy just laughs. “Rest assured, it’s yours.” Tilting his head, he presses a gentle kiss to Felicity’s lips. “And so am I.”


	5. Roped Into

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follows up from Chapter 4. 
> 
> Prompt from Abbie: "It's okay, you don't need to talk now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I'm not entirely sure what this one is, but I hope it's fun. I just had a particular, amusing image in my head (partially inspired by a childhood memory), and then it just kind of rolled where it wanted to from there. Which meant that I ended up with a bit of focus on a different relationship (familial, though) at the core, but it's still surrounded by Flomminess all around.
> 
> As noted, this is meant as a follow-up to the previous chapter. Here's a look at what comes after a secret relationship isn't a secret anymore.
> 
> Enjoy!

“It’s okay, you don’t need to talk now,” Felicity says gently, doing her level best to keep her voice from giving way to the rising giggles. The effort is helped along when she clears her throat and steps closer. “Well, not that you… I mean… hang on.”

Carefully dropping to her knees on the rug, she reaches for Tommy’s face, grazing a thumb lightly over his right cheekbone before her hand settles just past the corner of his mouth. Readying herself, Felicity raises her eyebrows and gives Tommy a questioning glance, awaiting his acknowledgement.

The forceful exhale through his nose and subsequent screwing shut of his eyes are the closest things Felicity will get to a go-ahead. Without further ado, she slips one pink nail under the edge of the purple butterfly-printed duct tape and pries it up as fast and hard as she can.

She can’t help but wince at the tearing sound of separating adhesive from flesh and Tommy’s inadvertent whimper of pain, but soon enough the tape is completely loose and easily crumpled into a ball.

“Guess it’s a good thing I shaved this morning,” Tommy quips weakly, contorting his lips in an assortment of odd expressions to ease the pain. “If I hadn’t, I’m pretty sure that would have ended any chance I had of future facial hair growth.”

Felicity runs a finger softly over the reddening skin lower on Tommy’s cheek. “You could still use some moisturizer,” she notes, tapping twice before withdrawing her hand to rest in her lap. With that urgent matter settled, she takes a moment to fully process the scene before her, amusement bubbling in her chest until it threatens to overflow. “Did… did you have a nice chat with Thea?”

Tommy’s lips twist into a playful pout as he heaves a deep sigh, the expansion of his chest one of the few movements his current predicament will allow. “Would you believe that this is one of the better-case scenarios I could have expected?”

“Considering you’re trussed up by jump ropes on your living room floor instead of helping her out with target practice? If you didn’t already come from a place of wealth, I’d call that winning the lottery.”

Tommy wriggles in his bonds to free his right hand enough to raise his index finger. “Hey, don’t joke about that second option. Oliver has been taking this a little too well, and it also hasn’t escaped my notice that he’s acquired some new trick arrows. Just wait, I’m going to get too comfortable and let my guard down, then _bang_! Boomerang arrow clocks me on the back of the head.”

Felicity wrinkles her nose at that. “He’s come up with some weird ones, that’s for sure, but I don’t see what would be the point…”

“Boomerang. Arrow.” Tommy just stares wide-eyed back at her, solemn in the face of his fear.

Figuring it best to leave things at that, Felicity changes direction. “I’m guessing there’s a story behind this?” she prompts, running a hand over the long, rainbow-colored woven cloth jump rope wound around Tommy’s torso and arms. A smaller plastic one binds his feet together at the ankles for good measure, which Felicity immediately begins to work at undoing. “Not that I’m doubting Thea’s ingenuity in combat, but this seems more like inside joke-material than a new move Speedy plans to rain on the Starling City criminal underground.”

“Oh, yes, this is classic vengeful seven-year-old Thea Queen, a tactic employed in many a game of ‘extreme’ hide-and-go-seek,” Tommy confirms. Feet freed, he shuffles them over the rug to try to push himself upright, Felicity’s hand guiding his back to prop up against the couch. “I don’t know how she got it in her head, but one of the rules of the game was that, when found, the seeker gets to wrap up the hider like a birthday gift left in the hands of a toddler with a ball of ribbon, to gloat about their superior finding skills. And seeing as Thea liked running around and doing the seeking…”

Felicity gives that a small wince, before settling in next to Tommy in front of the couch. “Well, you were a very good big brother even then for playing along,” she says, bumping shoulders with him.

“Ollie and I both were,” he adds hurriedly, as if afraid to take that credit solely for himself. His brow furrows as he thinks back, though, and he continues slowly, “Although, most of the time he went for the most outrageous hiding spots so that Thea’d come across me first, and by the time she found him—or he waited her out—she’d have had her fun and want to move on to something else.”

Felicity can’t help but let out a short, unsurprised hum of laughter at that—it figured that the Arrow’s ability to keep perfectly out-of-sight when needed was something Oliver cultivated even before the island. That’s the only acknowledgment she gives the idea, though; anything else, and Tommy could so easily take that as an invitation to spiral into more bits from the Adolescent-Ollie-and-Tommy Comedy Hour. Still such an inherent reaction for him, even on the verge of realizing something meaningful.

“I… I guess this really _was_ more of a thing between just Thea and me,” he finally says, body going lax as the truth of the words settles in. His head dips slightly in a weak attempt to hide the bright, goofy smile cracking at the edges of his lips, as if he thinks it isn’t allowed.

Sometimes, Felicity almost forgets that, up until the last few years, Tommy was also an only child. “Almost” is the key term—the two of them resonate in all the same lonely places that it’s nigh impossible not to be aware, even without directly thinking about it. But seeing Tommy with Thea and hearing old stories always had a way of dialing back, or even muting altogether, that recognizable echo for a time.

Even before having blood-relation confirmation, Tommy was Thea’s older brother in every way he could be, stopping just short of whatever big, waving banner declared her as _Oliver’s_ little sister. Learning the truth just meant Tommy’s name got slapped up right next to Oliver’s, and he now had permission to venture across the territory that lay beyond that marker.

Felicity’s long had the impression that Tommy still quietly divides his relationship with Thea into a “before” and “after” because of that, but she can hardly see any change beyond the two of them openly calling each other sibling. Their rapport is too familiar and comfortable to be written off as a fairly recent evolution, and Thea would surely object (and call Tommy an even bigger dumbass than Oliver) if she knew about his classification system.

With the way this conversation has turned, though, Felicity can start to see his rationale, flawed as it may be.

“Just because you didn’t know it back then doesn’t mean you weren’t her brother,” Felicity points out. She flicks a finger under Tommy’s chin until he tilts his head back up and glances over at her, surprise cutting into that adorable grin. “You’re not retroactively taking anything away from Oliver for having an inside joke with just you and Thea. You can have this.”

Tommy’s expression freezes as shock flashes across it, but a few moments later it melts into something soft and thankful.

“And,” Felicity continues, ever so slowly leaning in, “I think Thea wants you to have it as well, seeing as this was a _very specific_ reaction to finding out that we’ve been dating and hiding it from everyone.” She tugs on a piece of the jump rope still wrapped around Tommy’s upper body for emphasis, fighting a grin.

Tommy almost knocks himself back over with the laughter that bursts out at that.

“I didn’t even question it!” he gasps in between bouts. “She came over with lunch, we had a nice chat like adults, she took my explanation of us wanting to take things slow and quietly before telling anyone with ease, and then…” He breaks off there, voice pitching high in a giggle, “Then she just nodded, said, ‘Okay then,’ and flying-tackled me. And I didn’t do a thing about it, because I just saw that rainbow jump rope and instinctively thought, ‘Ah, darn, Speedy’s found me again!’ like she was still that cute little brat.”

“I’m sure some part of Thea always will be, between both you and Oliver.”

“Oh, no question there,” Tommy agrees. “The duct tape alone earns her that status back—that was a new development. I think it was her version of giving me a shovel talk over you? You know, even though I’m her brother, if I hurt you…”

“Well, I appreciate the sentiment,” Felicity admits, “but I think _I_ had to hurt _you_ first, in order to rip it off.”

Tommy shrugs, conceding that point. A beat, and then a mischievous glint comes to his eyes. “It still aches a bit, you know, around my mouth.”

Felicity raises her eyebrows at that, giving him a particular _look_ even as she drops an arm over his shoulder. “Is this your way of asking me to kiss it better?”

“Figure it couldn’t hurt,” he returns with a sly smile, leaning forward until their noses graze.

Only when the two of them fall backwards and sideways a few seconds later do they remember the loose end yet to be tied.

(Rather, _untied_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still have a few more Flommy prompts to come, which I'll hopefully get out sometime soon! I'm open to replenishing that list too, and have reblogged a few different word/sentence prompt lists on Tumblr in the past months, so feel free to fling them at me!
> 
> Until next time!


	6. Lessons in Soundtrack Selection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Sliced out of an AU in which Malcolm brought Tommy back to the League as a child, and Tommy only recently got out to try to rebuild his life.] 
> 
> Movie nights with Felicity are always fun, but they probably shouldn't be laughing so hard over _this_.
> 
> Prompt from Abbie: "Breathe"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Consider this one a fun little bonus ficlet. I wrote it up a while ago, where it lived solely on Tumblr, but after going back-and-forth for a long time I've finally decided to bring it over here.
> 
> As the summary mentions, this is a snippet from an alternate universe (the Distortion 'verse), one that originates from my [ Merlyn Boys](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1521572) collection of multiverses. There's not much written for it yet, as it expanded into a _much_ bigger idea than I originally planned (enabled by Abbie) and exists mostly as meta in chats, but this was one of the few pieces I've actually written up. It's a bit earlier in the present of the timeline, is centered around Tommy and Felicity as a growing friendship, and stands on its own well enough that I figured I'd drop it into this collection.
> 
> The only context you should need for this ficlet is in the brackets at the top of the chapter summary; aside from a couple offhand comments from Tommy that are specific to this universe, this works as just a moment of light fun between these two.
> 
> Given that background, enjoy this little snippet!

“Breathe!” Felicity demands, smacking Tommy’s chest even as her own is wracked with uncontrollable giggles.

He complies almost immediately, sucking in a loud gasp around his laughter that makes him sound like a honking goose. The sound only makes him crack up even harder, and his torso slides from an upright position on the couch and down to the cushions, in which he automatically buries his face.

“You… you better not be getting _snot_ on my furniture!” Felicity warns, but any fire behind it gets doused by another fit of laughter. Before her brain can catch up to her, her body follows Tommy’s trajectory, and they end up stacked back-to-back on top of the couch.

Tommy wriggles underneath her weight, but not enough to dislodge Felicity and send her toppling. He turns his head to the side on the cushion and gulps in another lungful of air.

“I would never,” he swears, carefully prying an arm out from underneath him to lift his hand in a three-finger salute. “Scout… uh, ex-assassin’s honor.”

The resurfacing of that fact is, somehow, just sobering enough to turn off the tap on the giggles, without entirely snuffing out the joy filling the apartment. With one trailing chortle, Felicity pushes herself back upright, and Tommy follows suit as he tucks into the opposite corner of the couch.

“ _Oh_ ,” Tommy says, scrubbing a hand over his eyes to ease the tension and swipe away any lingering tears. “Oh, I honestly have no idea why I found that so _funny_.”

Nudging her glasses back up her nose, Felicity snuggles back under her blanket. “Because it _is_ ,” she affirms, fumbling around the cushions in a blind search for the TV remote. “I mean, it’s not _supposed_ to be, not when the actors are _clearly_ giving it their all to play it serious.”

“If that’s their best effort at mimicking attraction, then I’d be making millions in Hollywood,” Tommy mutters into his glass of water. It’s a quiet, almost offhand comment, but Felicity’s attention snags on the dark and bitter tone.

Any intention to ask about it gets swept away once Tommy lowers his glass and turns his gaze back to the paused TV screen. One look, and his body twitches with a muffled snort of amusement.

“We, uh,” he stumbles, waving a hand at the screen while the opposite one comes up in a fist to his mouth as he coughs. “We might want to fast-forward. Or at least let it run _without_ the sound on. I don’t trust that I’m going to be able to hold it together otherwise.”

“Noted and agreed,” Felicity says, enunciating each word as she triumphantly wrests the remote out of a crevice between couch and cushion. Ensuring that the volume has been dialed all the way down to zero, she hits Play and stretches out until her feet land in Tommy’s lap. “Let’s just call this a lesson in proper soundtrack choices.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Tommy snarks, before settling back in with an amused grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recommended listening: "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons
> 
> Yeah, I _may_ have built this entire narrative around a certain _infamous_ combination of scene type and song from canon... I just needed to have these two react to something similar during movie night, and share a little laugh over it.
> 
> Anyways, hope this was a fun little bit, even with its AU roots. Keep your eyes peeled for a _true_ new update, coming to you soon--I'm wrapping up a few missing pieces, with the goal of dropping the ficlet this weekend.
> 
> Until then!


	7. Mission Kissin'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy's having a bit of trouble with his role in the mission. Felicity's figured out a likely solution, even if it's sure to be a _terrible_ idea. 
> 
> ...Or maybe not.
> 
> Prompt from StoriesOfImagination: "kissing on a mission"
> 
> [Standalone; unrelated to any previous ficlets]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, here's the brand-new post I teased last time! This one was _a ride_ in a lot of ways, as I went through a few different thoughts on how to fill the prompt until settling on this one, and then had a bit of fun with bringing it to life. The prompt itself offered a nice challenge for me, too, and as such I'd say that this is a bit different from most things I've written before. Bit experimental, but I hope you enjoy all the same.

_“Okay, somebody be honest with me: am I still a conventionally-attractive man with a winning smile and an appealing backside?”_

While her position across the crowded floor gives her the perfect vantage point to watch Tommy approach the bar, Felicity is immensely grateful that she isn’t as easily spotted in return and thus can choke on her glass of wine in relative peace. The Merlot slipping down the wrong pipe also saves her from having to answer that question.

(The spiral of awkward that would come with the vehemence of her _Yes_ is the last thing Felicity needs right now.)

_“You’re fine, Tommy,”_ Oliver assures him instead, albeit flatly and edged with the fond annoyance of a longtime friend who’s trying to be the scourge of the criminal underworld at the moment. The comm picks up the patter of rain on metal, confirming that he’s arrived at the docks. “ _Give it time.”_

Tommy huffs out a laugh at that, tucking his chin down as he signals the bartender with his right hand. _“That’s the problem—I shouldn’t_ need _time. I played up the right qualities, didn’t I? Charming but not too friendly, mysterious but not too closed off… by all accounts, Lina should have taken the bait.”_ He pauses to give his drink order to the bartender, before surreptitiously peering over his shoulder. _“She’s not even looking this way, is she?”_

Throat now cleared of alcohol gone rogue, Felicity takes that as her cue and scans the room for the (ironically) emerald green of Lina Matheson’s gown. It’s subtle in the sea of black and white, but any pop of color is bound to stand out, and Felicity’s gaze locks onto the woman in question just as she retrieves a champagne glass from a passing serving tray. She smiles with performative politeness and nods to a few other guests as she passes, but true to Tommy’s prediction, not a single glance is spared towards the bar.

“I’ll go over the workup again,” Felicity says in place of a more direct confirmation, making a careful operation of retrieving her phone from her clutch without spilling her half-full glass of wine. “See if there’s anything else we can use to our advantage, or a new angle we could try. Maybe you just need to go in and, I don’t know, appeal to her guilty pleasure for procedural crime dramas or something.”

_“That would make for an interesting guilty pleasure,”_ Tommy notes, the mic picking up the clack of ice in his glass as he takes a sip of his drink. _“You know, seeing as she’s working on the side that usually gets caught in under an hour. That’s either disheartening, or empowering for her own activities.”_

_“If you find something, work with it,”_ Oliver cuts in, steering the conversation back on track. _“We need access to Lina’s hotel room and her hired guns off her back long enough to drop a couple bugs. Doran is due to meet her in two hours to confirm this week’s shipment and so she can give him the crate number, and we need to find it before any of their men can.”_

_“Right, right,”_ Tommy acknowledges with a sigh. _“Give me a sec…”_

“I should have something for you in just a few more.” Miraculously, Felicity manages to bite her tongue to keep from pluralizing Tommy’s word choice in her offer.

This night is becoming a crash-course in why she and Tommy aren’t often put out in the field together. Even when they’re not supposed to interact directly, keeping an eye on Tommy—in formalwear, no less—from across the room has a way of making her brain-to-mouth filter want to glitch even more than normal.

(It certainly doesn’t help that his _own_ comms chatter keeps giving her so many openings to do so.)

Turning back to the task at hand (and distracting herself from thinking about feelings of any sort), Felicity swipes at her phone and pulls up Lina’s file, giving it another scan. She’d been thorough in compiling it, gathering the standard data—the phone records, the credit card statements, the offshore accounts—and whatever personal and social life details she could track down. For a regional theatre actress turned crime syndicate higher-up (a rather drastic career change) Lina doesn’t seem to value much discretion on the latter, making Felicity’s job that much simpler.

Tommy had tried to subtly work theatre into the conversation on his first pass with Lina, but it still hadn’t been enough to hold her interest. Felicity starts there, scrounging for any other possible threads, but if it didn’t do much the first time…

There’s a small flash of color in the corner of her eye, heading towards the bar, and Felicity immediately jerks her head up. Rather than finding Lina with a change of heart, though, her gaze lands on another woman in a gorgeous deep blue gown, stopped at the counter a couple seats down from Tommy. She gives him a red-lipped smile, just this side of lusty, which Tommy returns politely yet emptily before turning back to his drink.

False alarm confirmed, Felicity lifts her phone once again, only for her attention to jump to the opposite side of the room at more movement. Lina’s shade of green is instantly recognizable as she weaves through the crowd, coming to a stop at a pillar that gives her a clear line of sight to the bar.

One that she’s making good use of, with the way her stare lands on Tommy’s back, and that of his would-be drinking buddy—watching, waiting.

Lips popping into a surprised ‘O’ as puzzle pieces begin to connect, Felicity swipes her screen a few times to pull up one particular section of the file while keeping a close eye on Lina. If there’s indeed something in here that can back up her conjecture, then they may have just found their perfect bait.

A few more quick taps, a little scrolling and skimming, and sure enough, _there it is_.

“Alright, Tommy,” Felicity starts, voice confident as she swings her attention from her phone and back across the room. “I’m going to need you to…”

Her jaw clicks shut the moment she notices that their key pops of color are now down to one, whose interest in the happenings at the bar has fled with the other.

_“Felicity?”_ Tommy prompts after a prolonged moment of silence, discreetly turning his head towards her. The motion—and the fact that he felt he could freely address her over the comm—confirms that he’s alone once more. Not even the departure of his quiet admirer was enough to draw Lina over to take her place.

_Oh_ , the details are assembling into a very clear picture, now, and Felicity’s not entirely sure how she feels about it. She’s even less certain if it’s _actually_ a better idea to take things into her own hands and run with it than to brainstorm another option, but her feet are moving before she can stop herself.

Wine held conspicuously high as she squeezes through the crowd, Felicity totters on her heels and sways enough to convincingly appear wasted. Her movements become even more distracting the closer she gets to the bar, punctuated by the full collapse of her weight on Tommy’s arm the second she reaches his side.

“I think I found a new angle,” Felicity hisses to Tommy under her breath, silencing any (rightfully) confused reaction to her appearance. That’s all the explanation he gets before Felicity struggles to crawl into his lap with the grace of someone trying to balance a drunken charade and her actual relative sobriety.

Automatically, one of Tommy’s arms slips under Felicity’s legs to carefully maneuver them over his thighs, while the other loops around her back to support her while seated sideways. “Consider me your captive audience,” he quips back, a single eyebrow arched.

Letting out a high-pitched giggle loud enough to ensure Lina’s attention (if it wasn’t already on them the second Felicity got close), Felicity collapses heavily against Tommy’s chest. Half-consciously, one hand drifts from its place at her side and begins roving over the lapel of his jacket for further effect.

“I missed something in the initial search,” she admits in a much quieter tone, discreetly keeping a bead on the flash of green across the floor. Both her hand and words pause a moment in consideration, before Felicity amends, “Well, not so much _missed_ as didn’t really connect the pieces or recognize the pattern as one until now. It was helped along when I noticed a few things tonight.”

“Mmhmm,” Tommy hums, glancing back at her with interest and a soft smile. While Felicity can tell it’s intended as an encouragement to go on, the sound lends itself so easily to the façade, as if expressing his enjoyment over basically being felt up.

The phrasing of that last thought finally catches Felicity’s brain up with her actions, with dawning clarity that it _seriously_ isn’t going to lead to anything good if she keeps rolling down this path. Her hand drops away from Tommy’s shirt ( _when and how did it wander over to the middle of his chest?_ ) as if it’s shorted out.

“Never mind,” she says hastily, moving to push herself up and off of Tommy altogether, regardless of whether or not Lina is still watching. “I… I didn’t think this through. It was just a hunch, even with substantial evidence, and there’s too much of a risk factor to foll-…”

“ _Felicity_.” The hand settled on her waist draws her attention with a light, comforting squeeze. “I am fresh out of ideas for how to get this back on track, so if you have a suggestion, please, _lay it on me_.”

There must be something about that soothing hand at her side and the tone of his voice, because Felicity has no other explanation for the “I already am,” she blurts in response.

The wide-eyed double-take that plays across Tommy’s face would be adorable, if it weren’t the complementary reaction to the heat rising in Felicity’s.

“Both… _physically_ laying on you, and… laying the _plan_ on you,” she clarifies slowly, squeezing her eyes shut as the hole digs deeper and deeper. “They’re kinda interconnected.”

“I, uh, figured,” Tommy acknowledges, though it breaks on a slight cough. His throat bobs as he swallows thickly, then drops his voice lower. “But you _do_ have an idea?”

Every alarm bell and klaxon in Felicity’s brain is going off, but over the noise, she can already tell it’s too late to turn back without having a _really_ concrete explanation. And try as she might, that’s the one thing she can’t seem to summon right now.

If she’s _this_ deep into a bad idea already, then maybe it’s time to grab the scuba gear and hope nothing _too_ catastrophic happens.

“The last two men Lina’s been attached to,” she starts, slowly lowering herself back down until her head settles comfortably next to Tommy’s right ear. “Brian Sumter and Paolo Dochelli.”

“I remember,” Tommy murmurs back, lips twitching futilely in reaction to Felicity’s breath tickling his skin. “She met them both through mutual friends, right?”

“Maybe not the right choice of words,” Felicity contradicts, “because in both cases, Lina was friends with Brian and Paolo’s respective _girlfriends_. And from what I could see, those splits predated the relationships with Lina by hardly any time at all.”

The pieces almost audibly click into place in Tommy’s mind after that, and he pulls back slightly to glance at Felicity head-on. “Lina was the _cause_ of those break-ups. Or, at the very least, was immediately there to reap the rewards.”

“That’s the working theory. Combined with how she’s risen through the ranks and gained the power she has now—and if the rumors surrounding her short-lived stage career are true…”

Felicity trails off, risking another careful glance back at Lina over Tommy’s shoulder. Sure enough, the other woman is turned fully towards the bar, one hand and a champagne glass held aloft in a tight grip, while her opposite arm folds across her chest in clear displeasure.

That’s the final confirmation they need, which leads Felicity to conclude, “…she likes taking what others’ have.”

Bomb dropped, Felicity bites her lip in nervous silence as Tommy takes the time to process both the deduction and the likely course of action to make use of that information.

“So, what we’re thinking here,” he starts after a moment, voice slightly strained and pitching high, “is we convince her that I’m something worth taking. From you.”

Having it vocalized makes Felicity flush and almost duck her head against Tommy’s neck, but she manages to get at least her thoughts straight. “I think you almost had her on the first go-around, otherwise she would have just dismissed you entirely and wouldn’t keep checking you out from a distance. Especially when someone else gets close,” she points out. “So we’re about halfway there.”

“The worth taking part, I’m guessing.” The way Tommy says it sounds much too disbelieving.

Felicity sighs, and this time her hand deliberately moves from Tommy’s chest to rest—gently but grounding—along his jawline. “That’s not even a question, now or ever,” she assures him firmly, even as it risks revealing more than she might like.

There’s a flash of surprise (and maybe even _understanding_ ) behind Tommy’s eyes, before they fill with something soft and his free hand drifts up to settle atop Felicity’s. “I get that this is more in regards to me right now,” he says with a slight laugh, before dropping into a quieter, earnest tone. “Just know that the same goes for you, too.”

Anything Felicity might have to say to that gets thoroughly wiped from her mind when the arm wrapped around her back carefully nudges her forward, and her eyes fall on the particular cant of Tommy’s head.

“So, if we’re going to give Ms. Lina Matheson a _great_ _many_ reasons to be seeing green beyond her gown,” he murmurs, the sensation of his breath against Felicity’s lips making her immediately aware of their closeness. “I’d like to propose an encore later on. Little bit less of a production, little bit more private…”

“I accept your terms,” Felicity finds herself saying, a thrill running through her chest. Her hand once again finds Tommy’s shirt, this time gathering the material in a tight fist to pull her in and close the few remaining centimeters between them. “Lina doesn’t get to keep what she takes this time.”

Tommy has no verbal response to that, just the eager, wholeheartedly agreeing press of his lips against hers.

If everything goes according to plan, in a minute or two they’ll have to part for breath, as well as an approaching Lina and her renewed interest in Tommy. The mission will be back on track from there, returning Felicity to her support role behind a screen and leaving Tommy to his bug-planting upon invitation to Lina’s room. No job is over until the arrows fly, and even then, there’s bound to be a few more hours of wrap-up before calling it a night.

The promise of _later_ is a sweet one, something to chase and carry them through the tasks to come. But it’s the _now_ that makes it even possible, and neither of them are in any rush to let it slip away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll cite _Mission: Impossible--Ghost Protocol_ as partial inspiration for this, but just in the base concept of Tommy's predicament and Felicity's plan. Everything else was just me running wild and being shippy.
> 
> I have a couple more prompts to fill, but if you have any word or sentence prompts for these two, toss 'em at me! 
> 
> Until next time!


	8. Constants

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some people know each other well enough to find the familiar in the unknown.
> 
> Prompt from Anonymous: "I need a hug. A six hour one." [A standalone entry in this collection]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally returning after last time's double-update! I think I actually had this piece in progress (and heavily so--probably ~80% of the structure was there before I just patched things up) back then, but I couldn't figure out how to fill some holes and was frankly a little uncertain of the idea. But it's almost Halloween, so let's call it a thematic little piece! One that's a bit experimental, focuses a little heavier on platonic Flommy and deep understandings of each other, and uses (but doesn't actually feature) Klarion the Witchboy as a plot device.
> 
> Anyways, hope you enjoy!

Loath as Tommy is to think it, sometimes he misses the days when the evildoers of Starling City were simply morally-corrupt businessmen and crime lords running the too-close-to-the-surface underworld. Obviously, still bad guys, but _their_ powers were at least material and predictable: money, weapons, martial arts training from a mystical murder cult that _also_ offers a minor in megalomania. And for the most part, Tommy wasn’t in direct confrontation with those seedy types, spending more of his time adjusting to the nauseating shift in worldview they presented, and then hanging on the sidelines to lend the occasional hand in the crime-fighting process.

Straightforward, unsurprising, fairly distanced—those are the types of villainy with which Tommy knows how to deal. But the world’s gotten weirder, and so have the enemies; it figures that he’d be thrown face-first into the unknowable machinations of some magic-wielding, whackadoodle…

“… _C-list Scooby-Doo villain_ ,” Felicity seethes, voice finally puncturing Tommy’s thoughts like a splinter. She turns sharply on her heel to pace in the other direction, the clack of her footsteps echoing off the basement walls. “I’m gonna get him.”

Though she isn’t facing him, Tommy glimpses her hands going up, claw-like, in front of her, and shaking in an imaginary stranglehold. It’s an adorably familiar enough gesture that it almost puts him at ease.

( _Almost_.)

“And his little cat, too,” Tommy agrees, slipping from his tongue as an instinctive reaction of humor. As if nothing’s… _off_ about this picture.

“Yes, the _cat!_ ” Pale blue-painted fingers snap, leaving the index finger triumphantly pointing up. “You know I love kittens. But that thing? Last time, when it tried to…”

“Last time?” Tommy repeats, head tilting in curiosity. He belatedly realizes the rudeness of interrupting like that, but the discomfort of _not knowing_ has a firm grip on the wheel. “You’ve dealt with this Puritanical nightmare child before?”

In the space between questions and answer, Tommy drifts the remaining few feet over to Felicity’s workstation. He doesn’t dare sit in the chair—that’d just be courting death, or at least a truly withering glare—but leaning against the table provides him a… _grounding_ , of sorts. It’s the best thing he can get until this whole situation is resolved and reversed.

Depending on the response Felicity has for him, maybe that’ll come sooner than expected.

Both the interjection and the movement make Felicity’s spine snap pin-straight—an instantaneous shattering of illusionary comfort—and she slowly pivots to glance back at Tommy from the opposite end of the floor. Yet as useful as it might be to her, too, Felicity doesn’t make a single move towards the bank of computers and empty chair (towards _Tommy_ ), instead hugging her arms to her chest and rooting herself in place.

“Oh, yeah, a… a couple times, now,” she stumbles, biting her lower lip. “I don’t know, there’s just something about us— _my_ team—that keeps him coming back on chaotic reunion tours. But this is the first time I’ve been his plaything of choice, and he’s never done something quite of…” she extricates one hand and waves it aimlessly around her “… _this_ magnitude, before.”

“The Great Felicity Swap,” Tommy murmurs absently. It’s neither a joke nor a judgment, just a phrasing of the situation, but Felicity shifts her shoulders at the words.

“We’re going to fix this,” she says, quiet yet firm. “Even if Klarion’s gone to ground, or is hiding somewhere out of _all_ of our reaches, we can still set things right without him. I refuse to believe anything else.”

Although she says “we” throughout those first two statements, that last part just solidifies what Tommy hears instead. It’s Felicity not voluntarily _wanting_ to do this alone, but also fully prepared to do so—her expectations of being denied help higher than the ones she has of help being _offered_.

It’s painfully recognizable—one of the similarities Tommy wishes he wouldn’t find between his… _universe’s_ Felicity and another’s. But at least the consistency confirms that the move he’s about to make is the right one.

“Well, I’m not really the guy with the plans around here, but I make for a pretty good gofer,” he starts, pushing off of the worktable and taking a few casual, tentative steps forward. “Tell me what to look for, what buttons to press, what you want for a meal break, and I’m your man.”

In yet another instance proving the importance of connecting his mouth to his brain every once in a while (and maybe looking into a script editor), Tommy cringes the second that last bit slips out and Felicity’s eyebrows shoot up into her hairline.

Lending a hand to your maybe-sort-of-just-starting-to-call-each-other-by-the-terms girlfriend’s doppelgänger (whose relationship with your own is a pretty big gray area, because she won’t say much except that she cares a lot about him) is the polite thing to do. Doing so in a way that sounds like you’re offering _more_ than just help, thanks to poor, unconscious word choice, is just plain stupidity.

“He does that too,” Felicity says after a moment’s pause. “My… _my_ Tommy.”

Surprised by the reaction, Tommy tentatively cracks one eye back open to meet Felicity’s gaze. “I should have figured that foot-in-mouth was a chronic, multiversal affliction.”

She flushes a bit at that, eyes flitting to the side in embarrassment. “That’s not… I mean, you’re right, you both have that in common,” she stumbles hurriedly. A deep breath in, and she gets back on track, facing Tommy again with a knowing look. “I was actually talking about the other thing—about not being the one with the plans, only good for being pointed in the necessary direction. You don’t get to pull that on me.”

Tommy’s mouth audibly clicks shut at that, any jokes or affirmations of his original statements shriveling in his throat under the weight of Felicity’s stare.

“He minimizes his skills like that, makes himself just the right size and shape to fit with whatever anyone else needs him to be,” she explains, plain and simple. “He’ll play up a few things, make jokes here and there about how looks and charm and the like come effortlessly to him, because that’s what people expect.”

Tommy shifts his shoulders in an odd sort of shimmy, as if those observations have physically burrowed under his skin and set off an unbearable itch. It’s one thing to be called out so plainly by someone he knows so well, and a whole different one when it’s an alternate version of said person. It’s both the discomfort of being so easily read by a relative stranger, and the realization that if this other Felicity knows, then there’s a fair chance that _his_ does, too.

Unsubtle as it must be, Felicity sees his twitching, and her face goes soft.

“The cooking, though, that’s a talent he owns in full, and will make it well-known that he’s the only one he trusts in the kitchen,” she notes thoughtfully. A split-second of silence lingers between the words, before she rushes, “Which is fine by me, because I’ll just burn everything anyway—at least that’s not as bad as making a full dish that’s arguably toxic, unlike _some_ people…”

Amusingly, they both shudder at that—Tommy at the mere concept, and Felicity presumably at the memory of an actual offending meal. They each catch the other’s mirrored motion, and their gazes snap to meet in faint embarrassment.

It doesn’t last, as Felicity flaps a hand to break the connection and get herself back on track. “Point is, he’s capable of so much more than he likes to tell people, and I’m willing to bet you are, too.”

On that note, she tilts her chin up and offers Tommy a pointed, challenging stare. It’s an achingly familiar look—a Felicity Signature—offered to anyone who might cross her; not a dare to prove her words right, but an offer for her to wipe the floor with the recipient and their flawed rationale of why she’s wrong.

No matter where she comes from, Tommy’s not taking that opening with _any_ Felicity.

That said, he does have his own, _different_ sort of reply.

“See, this goes both ways, because _I_ know _my_ Felicity,” Tommy points out, leaning in as closely and carefully as he dares without making Felicity uncomfortable. “How she’s always prepared to take on things by herself, even when she doesn’t have to. When she has someone—and usually _multiples_ —in her corner to back her up.”

Tommy tilts his head and raises his eyebrows knowingly, before continuing with quiet sincerity. “We can figure this out together, but I’m still on board with my original offer. Tell me what _you_ need, and I’ll handle it.”

Felicity makes as if to argue, but after a moment’s consideration, she purses her lips and narrows her eyes suspiciously back at Tommy. “Turnabout is fair play, huh?”

“Something about this whole situation has to be,” he notes, grinning cheekily.

Felicity rolls her eyes fondly at that, but her expression goes quietly pensive a moment later. “I guess there’s one thing I can think of,” she murmurs almost absently, gaze drifting down as her breath hitches.

“Anything,” he assures her. A hand comes up to hover over her shoulder, though it doesn’t land.

The motion is still enough to snap Felicity back into her thoughts.

“I need a hug. A six hour one,” she blurts, and almost immediately turns red. Her head shoots up whiplash-fast, eyes wide (and lightly sheened) and lips already tripping over an apology. “Wait, no, forget I said that, that’s _way_ too weird. We’re… not the _wrong_ versions of each other, that sounds mean, but _this_ you and _this_ me”—she flicks a finger between the two of them to illustrate—“we don’t have any sort of relationship. Sure, hugs are perfectly platonic, and it’s not like we’re really _strangers_ , but six hours is a long time for _anything_ physica- _agh!_ ”

“I did say ‘anything’,” Tommy cuts in before Felicity can spiral any deeper (or either of them can turn too red at that last bit), finally settling a hand gently on her shoulder. “And maybe six hours _is_ a while, but let’s just not put on a time limit at all. However long you feel you need.”

Looking at Felicity Smoak—no matter the universe from which she hails—and claiming that the fight has gone out of her is a concept Tommy would never dare verbalize, but something does seem to recede enough for the one in front of him to fall against his chest. His arms lock supportively around her lower back as her hands press at his shoulder blades for stability, and so they remain.

Not even a six-hour embrace would be convincing enough that the one in their arms is _theirs_ , but maybe a fraction of that time can confirm a friend in the familiar, and comfort enough to carry on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, bit of an interesting take, largely featuring platonic Flommy, but built up around established romantic ship Flommy and a version with a more nebulous (but still meaningful) relationship. Definitely not what I expected out of this prompt, but still something fun. I also think this is the first completed Flommy piece I've set in Tommy's POV, so that was also an enjoyable new experience.
> 
> Until next time!


	9. And let the words fall out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy and Felicity's word problems are frequently a source of amusement--and sometimes lead to important moments.
> 
> Prompt from p0cketw0tch: laughing together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What started out just as some Flommy silliness inspired by a goof I made a few days ago ended up finding a deeper plot and running in an interesting direction, and I'm so very glad it did.

In Tommy’s defense, it’s been a long week on all fronts, and at least he was still on something of a geographic track.

A giggle slips through Felicity’s lips—lovely pink and pressed firmly together in restrained amusement—just before they disappear behind the spread of take-out menus in her hand. Still, the makeshift fan leaves her eyes exposed, glittering with mirth behind her glasses.

“Sorry, what… what was that?” Felicity’s voice hits an unusually high pitch by the end of the question, straining under the effort to keep the laughter down. Without lowering the menus, she uses her free hand to motion in the vicinity of her left ear. “Think I misheard you.”

It’s a clearly-offered opening for Tommy to correct himself without issue, as if Felicity feels bad for laughing at an innocent fumble and wants to do the polite thing. As someone who’s made bigger (and Freudian-er) slips and had them respectfully—yet awkwardly—ignored, she must consider it a fair trade-off since she’s already blown past not acknowledging it.

Maybe, in any other situation, Tommy would take that opportunity and make a recovery, suave and smooth. Doing so certainly would have saved him a number of times in the past, instead of jerkily backtracking over a flub and making it even messier. This is a simple enough fix, a chance to take out a couple additional syllables and put a pin on the correct side of his mental map of the world this time.

A kindness, but not an out that Tommy needs. Both of them are prone to verbal goofs and filter failure, so owning up to a gaffe and any amusement it invokes seems like the right—and only—choice.

More than anything, though, Tommy likes to hear Felicity laugh.

“Sure thing,” he replies brightly, fighting the urge to join in for just a bit longer. He drops his elbows onto the kitchen island and rests his chin atop his hands to peer up at Felicity on the opposite side. “I said I was good with getting Chinese tonight—I’m feeling chicken, but maybe not Saska—”

Just as expected, the word gets cut short and drowned out by Felicity full-on cracking up. She presses her entire face into the menu-fan and collapses against the island, shoulders shaking violently.

That’s all the invitation Tommy needs to give in to his own laughter, harmonizing with Felicity’s hysterics. Never before has he been so delighted to be the butt of a joke.

“Sas- _Saskatchewan_ chicken?” The echo ekes out before another bout of giggles rushes forth, and Felicity finally pries the papers away to reveal the tears flooding her eyes. “You seriously _said that_.”

“Hey, can’t be that weird a thing,” Tommy counters, his own grin spreading even as he calms with a trailing chuckle. “I’m sure there are plenty of chicken there.”

“Which are possibly used in _Szechuan_ chicken,” Felicity rationalizes, though her voice goes tight in amusement as she drops the correct word. She takes a playful swipe at Tommy’s shoulder with the menus as she gradually regains her composure. “Did you do that on purpose? Because I _know_ you’ve pronounced it correctly in the past, and I’m pretty sure I almost wheezed up a lung just now. If this ends in a run to the ER, I think I deserve to know what put me there.”

“Yes and no,” Tommy admits, before tearing off a paper towel and passing it to Felicity so she can dab at her smeared eye makeup. “First time around, total accident. Picked a province on the wrong continent and it came out before I could catch myself. The second time, though…”

“You caught your mistake and still went…” Felicity pauses mid-question to blow out some air and sweep an arm forward for emphasis “…full-steam ahead?” She balls up the paper towel and slips her glasses back onto her nose. “Just because I was already laughing?”

“Pretty sure it’d be a crime to cut you off when you’re having fun like that—maybe not federal, or anything that’d tingle Oliver’s city-failing senses, but still a wrong done.” Tommy offers a cheerful smile back at Felicity, before he shrugs casually. “And, I mean, your laugh is one of the many reasons why I love you.”

From the way Felicity’s—and almost certainly Tommy’s, in mirror—eyes widen, she’s not going to ask him for another repeat-correction, having heard it loud and clear the first time.

_Now_ the instinct to back up and stagger foolishly through an explanation comes roaring back in full force, forcing Tommy to bite his tongue as discreetly as possible. While they weren’t intended for that moment, none of those final three words were untrue; walking them back would be a cruelty in some way or another.

If it was assured that only Tommy himself would suffer the blow—that it’d do no harm to Felicity to dismiss unwanted and unreciprocated feelings—then maybe he’d consider a cover-up and bury his heart once more. Felicity’s silence and stunned expression, though, are still too indiscernible for Tommy to determine a course of action.

In the end, he doesn’t have to, as proven by the hand that slips gently into his.

“This feels… _right_ , I think,” Felicity muses, a soft smile coming to her lips as her gaze settles on their interlocked hands. She runs her thumb back-and-forth over Tommy’s knuckles, and the motion lulls any lingering tension. “Saying ‘I love you’ for the first time, surrounded by verbal flubs.”

Felicity’s thumb freezes with the rest of her body at that, only her head capable of movement as it snaps up to match Tommy with a panicked stare. “Not that I’m calling _that_ one of said flubs, unless I really did mishear you this time or misinterpreted what was just supposed to be a polite compliment, like ‘I love your laugh in an aesthetic way and nothing deeper.’ I… I’m not trying to put words in your mouth that you didn’t mean that way.”

She stumbles to a stop with an audible exhale, and Tommy uses the pause to clasp at Felicity’s hand with both of his.

“You’re right,” he acknowledges, “that me making a confession this way feels very _us_. But those slips happen because we’re not thinking of our words, and I can promise you, I’ve spent lots and lots of time focusing on those three.” Tommy leans across the kitchen island, head dipping low as he peers up at Felicity. “I’ll gladly say them as many times as it takes for you to believe them, and well beyond.”

Once again, Felicity’s quiet makes something wobble uneasily in Tommy’s chest, but it calms a split-second later as she leans in to meet him halfway. “Maybe one more time,” she says, a grin tugging at her lips. “I’m having some hearing problems tonight.”

A breathy little laugh escapes Tommy’s mouth at that, but the words that follow are much more deliberate: “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Felicity returns just as sincerely, pressing her forehead to Tommy’s. “Saskatchewan chicken and all.”

Tommy groans comically, eyes fluttering shut as their noses graze each other. “I’m not living that down, am I?”

“Well, I _did_ give you a chance and everything short of white-out,” Felicity points out, greeting Tommy with a teasing gaze when he opens his eyes once more. “You made your own decisions.”

Tommy can’t bring himself to regret any of them in the slightest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In all seriousness, I did the Szechuan/Saskatchewan chicken thing, and from the moment my mom deadpanned, "Saskatchewan chicken." I was made aware that my family would not be letting that go anytime soon. So it was only fair that Tommy got to share in my mishaps, but with a much more pleasant, shippier twist.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this bout of goofiness and emotion!


	10. So hurry and happen to me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fluffy, plotless little piece: Tommy is struck by a different sort of slip of the lips.
> 
> Prompt from StoriesOfImagination: "accidental kiss"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick, silly little Flommy piece to close out 2020! Played a bit loose with the prompt, and this ficlet is really just schmoopy shippy kiss fluff, but I feel like that makes for a nice little garnish on this trying year.

“Oops,” Tommy murmurs into Felicity’s hair as he leans directly over her and her laptop to retrieve his phone from the other side of the kitchen table. He lingers a moment for a deeper press of his lips to the top of her head, then calmly pulls away. “Sorry, grazed you a bit there.”

Amused as she is by the antics, Felicity manages to school her expression into something more I-mean-business-y as she spins in her seat and pokes a finger to Tommy’s chest. “That apology doesn’t sound all that sincere, buster.”

“‘Buster,’ huh?” He doesn’t even bother fighting the grin, but still lifts his hands in playful surrender to the accusation.

Felicity rolls her eyes and tries to ignore the slight flush rising to her cheeks at the teasing as she jabs him again. “You heard me. That’s what you get for interrupting my coding groove.” 

“Don’t throw off the _groove_ ,” Tommy gasps melodramatically, blue eyes widening for effect.

“Rule number one.”

“Broken by such a _grievous_ mishap,” Tommy acknowledges, though his attempt at keeping a straight face fails by the first syllable. His hand casually drifts up to catch at Felicity’s—still hovering over his heart from the finger-pointing and prodding—and take it in a light, loose hold. “And I am so _very_ sorry for it.”

A little giggle slips out as Felicity takes in Tommy’s smiling earnestness, and she tips her head to peer at him over her glasses. “Well, I suppose I can let you off with a warning for this first offense.”

Tommy just returns the comment with a cheeky grin, before his attention turns to her hand tucked gently into his over his chest. “This looks like a nice new nail polish color,” he murmurs, shifting his fingers so they all rest beneath Felicity’s and raising her hand for a closer look. The incline of his head, though, causes his lips to skim her knuckles.

Felicity meets Tommy’s gaze with a wry arch of her eyebrow, beating him to the punch before his lips have fully parted to speak. “Clumsiness hitting particularly hard today?”

“I’m an accident waiting to happen,” Tommy admits with a light sing-song laugh, lowering their hands without releasing them. “Lips keep slipping, I guess.”

“Not one of the typical mouth problems either of us have,” Felicity muses. A beat, then she faceplants into her free hand. “ _That_ , though, was textbook.”

If Tommy is at all embarrassed or put off by the comment, he doesn’t let it show as he slips his hand from Felicity’s to free her palm from her face and tip her chin up. With a little grin, his lips brush the tip of her nose, exposed once more.

“Accidents happen.” Her brow, next. “But considerably less often after a good bit of practice.” Now his head dips lower, mouth so very close to her right ear. “Don’t suppose you could spare a little time for that?”

Even if the lighthearted subterfuge hadn’t already disrupted her coding groove, Felicity would have only one answer to that suggestion.

Tommy stumbles a little as she tugs him down, but he braces himself against her chair as the kiss deepens. It’s a much more potent embrace than the feather-light presses of lips that directly preceded it, yet just as loving (and deliberate).

“Oh, whoops,” Felicity says breathlessly a moment or two later, trailing her left hand down Tommy’s jawline as she slowly pulls back. “I was aiming for your cheek, there. It must be contagious, this lip-slipping.”

The glimmer of mirth in Tommy’s eyes is the only warning she gets before he loops an arm around her back and sweeps her to her feet. “All the more reason for practice to make perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this made for a nice, light little year-end chaser! May 2021 bring even more adorable Flomminess--I know I'm certainly going to work towards that to bring more installments to this collection.
> 
> Until then!


	11. No Prescription Required

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity isn't feeling too great, but Tommy is the very best medicine.
> 
> Prompt from Anonymous: "I can't tell if I'm in love with you or if all that cold medicine I took is finally starting to kick in."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short little piece again this time, but I hope you enjoy an offering of Flommy fluff this Valentine's Day!

“I can’t tell if I’m in love with you, or if all that cold medicine I took is finally starting to kick in,” Felicity murmurs, soft and sleepy, as she wiggles into a comfier position under the blanket.

“Ouch.” The light teasing in Tommy’s voice carries over the hush of his fingers skimming through Felicity’s loose curls. “Maybe it’s my ego talking, but I was kind of under the impression that the first part was a given before you even took a dose. We got a certificate of authenticity that says so and everything.”

Felicity responds with a fond eye-roll under drooping lids and blindly swats at Tommy’s shin. “Hilarious,” she deadpans back, though it comes out a bit muffled as she burrows her cheek deeper into the throw pillow on his lap. “You know what I mean.”

Tommy’s hand slips out of her hair, but before Felicity can let out a noise of complaint—inadvertently or otherwise (and not like she’d say which)—he reaches for her glasses and carefully slides them off her face before they’re knocked any more askew.

“I don’t think I do,” he admits, bending forward just enough to deposit Felicity’s glasses on the coffee table in front of the couch. “Equating being in love with being heavily medicated can be interpreted in multiple ways. Are you saying, for example, that love is potent like maximum strength sinus pressure reliever?” At that, Tommy cranes his head down to press his lips to Felicity’s temple, before slowly leaning back against the couch once more. “Or that it goes head-to-head with antihistamines in the snooze department?”

“Mm.” Felicity dares surface a hand from the coveted warmth of her blanket to intertwine her fingers with Tommy’s and tug their arms back under. “Yes. All. But also not really.”

Tommy breathes out a laugh at the jumble of responses. “I see.”

Felicity harrumphs a little at that—both out of annoyance at her inability to make her meaning clear, and to try to clear the gross feeling in her throat. “First part’s fair. Second, I can tell you asked that in a ‘you’re-boring-so-I’m-gonna-conk-out’ way, and while that’s the wrong idea, you _do_ help me sleep. Which is why I'm all turned-around.”

Tommy just lets out a soft, curious hum in response, settling into a calm stillness save for the repetitive brush of his thumb over the side of Felicity’s.

“I’m not sure if the meds are why I’m already feeling better, or if it’s because you’re here with me,” she finally gets out, cracking one eye open and rolling her head on the pillow just enough to peer back at Tommy. She purses her lips in consideration after a moment. “Same thing with the sleepiness. My sinuses are either super-charged to dry out, or your lap is the coziest place in the _world_ right now.”

It’s a little hard to make out his features with vision fuzzy from both over-the-counter medicine and the lack of prescription lenses, but Felicity knows Tommy’s face well enough to recognize a smile in the blur.

“I’m caught between feeling humbled or a little miffed by the fact that that title is expressly for ‘right now’,” he confesses, “but I’m all for the continued testing of the healing powers of both my lap and presence.”

Felicity snorts—probably not the best idea with all the head pressure—and rolls back into position on the pillow. “Good, because there isn’t an opt-out button. You’re staying put.”

Tommy doesn’t resist at all as Felicity draws their still-linked hands to her chest and curls up tighter on the couch. “Wouldn’t dream of doing anything else.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm struggling a little with my inspiration and writing drive right now (and I'm not pleased at all about it), but I'm still aiming to drop new pieces in this collection fairly regularly! I adore these two so much and want to write sweet moments with them, it's just the words refuse to go sometimes...
> 
> I'm also taking Flommy prompts to build my collection back up, so if you'd like to drop a word/sentence or general concept for these two, by all means!
> 
> Until next time!

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will be updated as prompt fills are completed, so there isn't currently a set schedule on new additions.


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